You always meet twice in life
by Bag End
Summary: Freshly graduated from University, Bas and Stu stumble right into the powerstruggle between the Taliban, CIA and ISI. Set in Season 4


"Shit. Bas, they could have killed us! We have gone too far." Stu hissed. On first sight, he looked every bit the tourist. Another bored student with too much money, who came to a troubled country like Pakistan just for kicks. But his provocative documentaries had won him several awards, and now his camera dangled in a bag over his shoulder. When his college friend Basilah prepared for her yearly trip to see her divorced father in Islamabad, he had joined her in the hope of shooting another movie. But what they had just captured on film... "Fuck, we are dead!" Bas said nothing, her hands clutched around her own camera. She took a deep breath and drew her scarf deeper in her face.

You didn´t capture a wanted terrorist like Haissam Haqquani on video without consequences. But he had appeared like a mirage on the steps of a Madrassah, stepped into a van and disappeared. Bas had managed to take a photo of the car´s licence plate and Stu had it on film. They had acted on instinct. No true journalist would have missed that opportunity. But what now? Publishing it? Telling someone?

They made it to Stu´s hotel room. Seemed like none of Haqquani´s thugs had seen them filming him. Stu dragged a chair in front of the door. "And that´s going to keep them out, hm?" teased Bas. She was as tense as Stu, but making fun of him always helped. Stu shot her a dirty look. "And now? Should we go to the police? MI-6? CIA? ISS?"

"MI-6? How are we going to find them? CIA? After they killed a whole wedding party to get to him? Do you really want to be the one to tell them that was in vain? And ISS? They might be in cahoots with him!" "So what? Put it on fucking YouTube? We can order the coffins together, if you want." "We won´t need coffins. They´ll leave us dead in the mountains! Fuck!" But Bas couldn´t deny the voice in the back of her head. _Just think of the great story this would make._ "The British embassy. We mail it to them. The will know what to do with it."

A loud knock on the door woke Stu. It was pitch black outside. "Fuck off." he murmured and pulled the blanket over his head. The knocking stopped. Then the door flew open and three men stormed into the room. One of them bellowed something in Urdu, but Stu could do nothing but stammer. "Come with us." he repeated in broken English. Before Stu could say anything, they dragged him out of bed and into a black van. _I am going to die. I am going to die. _Stu had never been that scared. The van didn´t take the road out of Islamabad into the mountains, but pulled into an impressive building. The ISS headquarters. Was that better? If they only had allowed him to get dressed. Boxershorts and his old "University of Southampton"-Tshirt didn´t do much in terms of confidence.

The men led him into a little room. The only furniture consisted of a table and two chairs. The lamp on the ceiling shone unnervingly bright. "Sit." commanded the leader. "Wait." Then they were gone. At least he didn´t have to wait for long. The door opened and a man entered, maybe in his thirties. Although he wore a dark suit, everything about his precise movements, stern glance and upright posture screamed "Military." Stu swallowed.

"Stuart Renley?"

"Y...yes." stammered Stu.

"I guess, you know why you are here." The man´s dark gaze was fixed on him. _Shit, shit, shit!_

"The video." The ISS must have intercepted it. Fuck! The man nodded.

"Who else knows of this." His voice was calm, almost friendly. How the fuck did he manage to sound so intimidating? In the back of his head Stu noticed his british accent. "I... was alone." "Are you sure you want to lie to me?" The steel in his voice made Stu shiver. No, he wasn´t. But he couldn´t let Bas get dragged into this too. "We didn´t bring you here to hurt you." Stu blinked. Now the guy sounded as tender as the best therapist. "Basilah Asra."

For the shadow of a moment, a singular look crossed the man´s face. He nodded, looking straight into the surveillance camera. So Stu wasn´t really surprised, when the guys who had brought him led Bas in twenty minutes later. Obviously _she_ had been given time to dress. She wore Jeans and a casual top, the scarf on her head had slipped over her shoulders and revealed her long, black hair. "You okay?" she asked Stu. She looked worried, but not as scared as Stu had been. Obviously, those guys had handled her differently. She shot him a quick smile that made his heart miss a beat. Bas was more pretty than beautiful, but Stu found her smiles irresistible. Stu´s interrogator watched her with an unreadable expression. "Take a set, please." His politeness seemed really... old-school. Bas sat down and looked at the man. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped and frowned, then shook her head. "Is anything the matter?" the man asked her, a confusing hint of a smile in his voice. Bas shook her head again. "Nothing. You just... No, sorry. Nothing." She shook her head again. "Well... You... You aren´t... Sorry, for a second I had confused you with someone I knew." The smile stole into his eyes. _What the fuck is going on? _Stu didn´t understand. Even less when the guy had the insolence to say "You have changed, Bas." with a voice that could have melted an ice cube. All she could do was to stare open-mouthed. "Oh my god! Aasar." She began to laugh, then remembered where she was and clasped a hand on her mouth. "Aasar Khan." she repeated. And Stu knew he was fucked. Of course Bas had told him about the sophisticated student from Pakistan who used to give her maths lessions when she had been a chubby teenager with bad skin and a bad haircut, back in London. Her first crush. Of course he had to turn out to be a dashing spy. It sucked to be Stu. "What about the video?" he brought the discussion back on track. "Are we in trouble?"

"You only sent it to the embassy?"

"Yes. But you know that, don´t you?" _Oops_. That came out more aggressive than he had meant it. Khan looked at him. "Indeed." Stu blushed. He had a feeling that Khan knew where the sudden enmity came from. "No, Mr. Renley. We only brought you here to warn you against further... indiscretions. The next time you capture a presumed dead terrorist on film, you bring it straight to us." "We will." Bas answered for him. She tried hard to repress the smile on her face. Khan didn´t smile, but there was a strangely tender expression in his eyes. "So... that was it? Can we go home?" Stu didn´t like the new turn of events at all. Khan gave him a quick nod. "You are free to go." Then he turned to Bas and handed her a card. "If you have any further trouble, you can reach me under this number." _Rashid Sabbah, barrister_. Bas felt the urge to giggle. _He gave me his number. _ "It was good to see you again." Finally, that made him smile. "It was good to see you, too."

It didn´t sound like a mere pleasantry.

"That was quick." Tasleem commented as she entered Aasar´s office. "I had expected a bit more resistance, at least from the boy. He made some pretty impressive documentaries. But you seem to have pocketed the girl easily enough. Wouldn´t have thought you to be the flirty type." Aasar raised an eyebrow . "That wasn´t necessary. I know her from my time in London." "How?" Tasleem was intrigued. None of them talked much about the time before the service. It was another life, that didn´t seem to belong to them anymore. "I helped her with maths to make a bit of extra money." "She must have been, what... about half your age then?" "About that, yeah. But in some respects, she hasn´t changed a bit." "Good god. If I´d have been the same with twenty-four that with twelve, I would have shot myself." "How were you like with twelve?"

"I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you." Both chuckled.

After Tasleem left, he replayed the surveillance video. Why did it throw him off? She was just somebody he used to know. So what? He used to know a lot of people. But now the memories began to creep back into his consciousness. He remembered a time when he had been carefree. The worst thing had been a bad mark. Back then, that had seemed like the end of the world. But now Aasar remembered it as a happy time. He had had a lot of friends, even girlfriends. He had missed his parents, but he had never really felt alone. And he had enjoyed teaching Bas. She had had a quick mind and a singular sense of humour. Whenever her parents went out for the evening, they would pay him to keep an eye on her. They would spend the evening with board games and age-inappropriate horror movies. Of course he had noticed that little Bas had been into him. That was natural, he supposed. He was older and "cool" (though Bas was one of the few people who thought so. He had always been one of the people who had been born middle-aged). Aasar watched her on the tape. Her smile had stayed the same, but she had grown up alright. She had been in the company of the documentary movie guy. Maybe she was doing something similar? He looked for the file one of the other agents had put together on them right after finding out about the video.

Apparently she had a degree in international relations and wrote for an online newspaper. She also ran a blog where she uploaded photos. Mostly landscapes. Aasar had been in the business too long to wonder if what he did could be called "stalking." He called it "taking an interest".

Bas´ happy state didn´t last long. They went straight to Stu´s room, both silently brooding. Without asking, Bas grabbed Stu´s laptop and replayed the video he had made of Haqquani. For a moment, he had looked straight into their direction. She paused and stared at the screen. "What the hell, right?" asked Stu. Bas nodded. "What the hell." This man was dangerous. This wasn´t like writing a story about how fucked up the british immigration policy was, or shooting a movie about cruelty to animals. This was war. "That´s too big for us, right?" "Right." Stu made a motion as if he were to take her hand, but stopped. "But your ISI friend let us off the hook easily enough." "Jep." "That´s it? I would have imagined..." He broke off but Bas knew him well enough to finish. "That I would dance around the room because I have his _number_? Whatever is going on here - and whatever he is doing here - is... that´s a bit out of our league, don´t you think?"

That was the sentence that made every self-respecting journalist cringe. But they were afraid, tired and a long way from home.


End file.
